A sound only you can hear
by X5thAvenueX
Summary: To say the very least.


**A sound only you can hear**

To say the very least.

Disclaimer: I do not own NCIS.

Should be revising, but have wanted to write something since I saw Jurisdiction (anyone else absolutely love that last scene and the tone of their voices and looks on their faces?)

* * *

**1. First:**

You do not look up as she passes your desk. Played between two sharp edges, this is not a game, but there are rules.

There are always rules, and you have both learned this the hard way.

You know that she is talking; you do not hear the words, only the tone (echoing through the closed metal space as you refuse to think of this as hiding)

You imagine, though only in the back of your mind, the angle of her eyes in relativity to your own. A ringing phone stops this from going too far.

Your hand on the receiver, because you know (you have learned) that it is always easier like this.

**2. Second:**

You watch her fingers tapping at the keyboard, letting it bring to mind triggers squeezed millimetres from firing and hands curled around styrofoam cups.

She meets your eyes and asks you if you want something.

The real words float between you, like leaves falling from a tree; intangible and curling in the wind, never quite hitting the ground.

Standing, you tell her no. Walk towards the bathroom.

She does not follow you in.

**3. Third:**

She places her palms flat on your desk, as though surrendering herself to it.

Somewhere, a conversation begins, or ends.

She is learning to appreciate the poetry in everything you do, even in the way your lips twitch upwards as you angle your head towards her. In the way you killed her lover and in the way you let your own walk.

The space between the two of you stretches and shrinks in rhythm to the emotions you speak and the words you don't.

She leans a little closer.

**4. Fourth:**

Your back is against the wall, she is pressed into your chest. The surrounding air is thick with both the tension and the scent of her hair.

You rest your hand above her hip, feel something (_anything_ that isn't lust) as you realise just how well it fits.

(And you're thinking; I was born in this position. She was born with me in mind)

She backs away, and you're reminded of green dresses and matching headscarves. Of questions without answers and answers with no place to settle. Of stains fading in the middle of a desert, of bags over heads and sand over eyes and sheets over skin. Of tongues that cannot move and people who do not want to.

(You are not thinking of her)

You open your mouth to speak.

She's already left.

**5. Fifth:**

The words are on the tip of your tongue; you swallow them with a shot of vodka. You've reached the wasteland now, and are both tired of turning in circles.

You would hate this, perhaps, if you weren't so busy with all you are lacking, with your inability to voice this is anything less than clumsy movements.

She turns to you, and you resist the urge to push her up against the bar and kiss her until you both bruise. Instead you note the white of her eyes, the red of the lip trapped between her teeth.

Her hand on yours, and you want to shiver.

**6. Sixth:**

Somehow you have her pinned against the drawers in autopsy, a slight change from three hours earlier, where you had her pinned against the cement of the side walk, saving her from a bullet to the head.

Her lips are so hot they're burning your skin, moving from your collar bone, to your neck, and up even further.

(You want to be used to the feeling of her tongue next to yours, be familiar with the taste of her, understand the words she is trying to push from her mouth into yours)

Instead you pull back panting, and her lips part so you can feel her teeth on your skin -

"I-"

"Shut up" she breathes, and as she kisses you again, her words taste strangely like salt.

**7. Seventh:**

She finds you at your apartment, and does not bother to knock. You are not waiting, nor does she catch you off guard.

There is no small talk and no alcohol; nowhere to throw blame but at each other.

You expected foreign moans and scratches down your back. Instead, she lays soft and tender beneath you, and silent (save for her pants against your collar bone and her smirk pressed into your chest)

**8. Eighth:**

A week later and you're flipping her over so she's trapped beneath your bare chest, and you're wondering - almost transparent as she arches her back - how you ever told yourself this wasn't déjà vu.

(In the background a black-and-white ship begins to move)

After, you fall asleep side by side - tangled in blankets but not in each other - and you both dream of absolutely nothing.

**9. Ninth:**

There is a blank space beside you, a blank piece of paper on your kitchen counter.

You stare blankly back.

**10. Lastly:**

Her hand is on the car door. You open your mouth because it's what you do.

"Tony"

She cuts you off before you can speak.

You're watching her almost intently.

**11. Epilogue:**

And as her lips twitch upwards it occurs to you - hands gentle on your hips and moving only lower - that few sounds remain; (the ticking of the clock on her bedroom wall), her breathing (steady) and your own heart (pounding).

Never one to shut up for long, but right now you can't think of a single thing worth saying, worth interrupting this for, except -

You open your eyes. And close your mouth.

You could get used to this kind of silence.


End file.
